Description
In Implicating the System: Judicial Discourses in the Sentencing of Indigenous Women, Elspeth Kaiser-Derrick’s work links the overrepresentation and intergenerational aspect of Indigenous clients involved in sex work at 80%. Other findings including from the Department of Justice Canada directly relate this to particular and distinctive historical and political processes entrenched in the colonial process. Using sentencing judgements and judges’ responses, Implicating the System reveals narratives of victimization and state oppression of Indigenous women and this interrelationship is the focus of this book. By studying this interrelationship the voices and directives of Indigenous women themselves are given a presence and context when criminalized Indigenous women’s histories are presented to the courts for the sentencing judge – this is storytelling in law. Working with the legislative requirement that the unique circumstances of Indigenous peoples to reduce reliance on incarceration in s.718.2(e) of the Criminal Code and the Supreme Court of Canada in R.v. Gladue and R. v. Ipeelee, established for sentencing Indigenous peoples, Implicating the System explores the disconnect between restorative justice sentencing practices and the coercive punishment of Aboriginal women because of the lack of their voices. The chapter outline is: Listening to What the Criminal Justice System Hears; Pathways Through Feminist Theories, Into the System; Sentencing Trauma: Gladue and the Continuum, Judicial Navigations; Incarceration Wounds: Judicial Discourses About Healing and the Conclusion – Refracted Through Institutional Lenses. Acknowledgements, notes, bibliography and an index complete Implicating the System.